Prince Harry set for another legal battle as privacy case to go to trial

Prince Harry set for another legal battle as privacy case to go to trial

GETTY
Dorothy Reddin

By Dorothy Reddin


Published: 10/11/2023

- 10:04

Updated: 10/11/2023

- 11:39

The Duke of Sussex is set for another legal battle

Prince Harry is set for another legal battle as his privacy case against The Mail publisher is set to go to trial.

It was expected that judges would give their decision today on whether the Duke of Sussex and others' privacy case against the Daily Mail publisher would go any further.


Preliminary High Court hearings took place over four days in March to consider legal arguments.

The Duke of Sussex brought action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) alongside Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost, Baroness Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish.

WATCH NOW: GB News Royal Correspondent discusses Prince Harry's upcoming trial

The case was over allegations that it carried out or commissioned unlawful information-gathering, which the Daily Mail publisher has firmly denied.

The allegations include hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars, “blagging” private records and accessing and recording private phone conversations.

Prince Harry’s privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail can continue, a High Court Judge has ruled.

The Duke of Sussex’s latest legal battle is one of six civil cases he is currently fighting through British courts.

Prince Harry

Prince Harry will go to trial against The Mail publisher

PA

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have sued Associated Newspapers four times, with the other three cases all targeting The Mail on Sunday.

Harry's witness statement to the court read: "My claim is that Associated's journalists, and/or private investigators engaged by it, targeted me and those closest to me via unlawful methods in an effort to obtain, and misuse, my private information and whereabouts which was subsequently published in its newspapers.

"Those unlawful information-gathering techniques included the hacking of my voicemails, landline tapping, blagging (impersonating), obtaining itemised phone bills, hardwire tapping, and obtaining private flight information for my former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, among other criminal methods, all of which was deliberately undertaken with the purpose of publishing articles about me in the defendant's newspapers because it made them money."

Prince Harry

Prince Harry is currently fighting six civil cases through British courts

PA

Elton John

Elton John joined the Duke of Sussex in the lawsuit

PA

The allegations date back to between 1993 and 2011.

A statement from Associated in October 2022 read: "We utterly and unambiguously refute these preposterous smears which appear to be nothing more than a pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone-hacking scandal concerning articles up to 30 years old.

"These unsubstantiated and highly defamatory claims—based on no credible evidence—appear to be simply a fishing expedition by claimants and their lawyers, some of whom have already pursued cases elsewhere."

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